Queen Elizabeth’s Many Rumored Feuds With Prince Charles Revisited

After taking a look at long-standing rumors involving Duchess Meghan Markle’s rumored feuds with the British royal family, and Duchess Kate Middleton’s supposed fights with Queen Elizabeth II, it’s time to revisit Charles, Prince of Wales, 70, and his alleged feuds with his own mother, 92-year-old Queen Elizabeth II.

Issues between Britain’s reigning queen and her eldest son are said to have started during his childhood. In the documentary “Princes Of The Palace,” writer and broadcaster Penny Junor states the Queen never formed a close bond with young Prince Charles.

Their lack of relationship during that time was seen by the public after the Queen and her husband Prince Philip’s return from a trip abroad. After a long time away from her eldest, the mother and son reunited at a train station, according to Express, only for the Queen to “fail at showing any affection.” The report states the Queen merely “shook her son’s hands after a very brief kiss on the cheek.”

Martin Charteris, Elizabeth’s once private secretary, said that Charles “must have been baffled by what a natural mother-son relationship was meant to be like,” according to a report from Vanity Fair.

In “Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes Of An Improbable Life,” biographer Sally Bedell Smith writes that Charles also had a confusing relationship with his father, Prince Philip. The now 97-year-old Prince of Edinburgh was said to belittle the future king with his “forceful” personality and “bullying.”

It’s not just Charles who has had rumored issues with the Queen, however. In Tom Bower’s tell-all “Rebel Prince: The Power, Passion and Defiance of Prince Charles,” he revealed that at Balmoral Castle in 1998, one year after Charle’s first wife, Princess Diana, died, Charles asked his mother to “soften her antagonism” so he could live openly with Camilla, whom he dated before his first marriage.

“But on that evening she'd had several martinis, and to Charles’s surprise, she replied forcefully: she would not condone his adultery, nor forgive Camilla for not leaving Charles alone to allow his marriage to recover,” states the book. “She vented her anger that he had lied about his relationship with what she called 'that wicked woman,’ and added: 'I want nothing to do with her.’”

Charles did go on to marry Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, in 2005.

While Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles may have had some issues in their lives, it appears things are on the up and up for them now. The Queen is reported by People Magazine to have given a warm speech to welcome in Charles’s birthday celebration at Buckingham Palace earlier this month.

“It is a privilege for any mother to be able to propose a toast to her son on his 70th birthday. It means that you have lived long enough to see your child grow up. It is rather like — to use an analogy I am certain will find favor — planting a tree and being able to watch it grow,” the Queen stated.

She continued: “Over his 70 years, Philip and I have seen Charles become a champion of conservation and the arts, a great charitable leader — a dedicated and respected heir to the throne to stand comparison with any in history — and a wonderful father. Most of all, sustained by his wife Camilla, he is his own man, passionate and creative. So this toast is to wish a happy birthday to my son, in every respect a duchy original.”